David Miller: Who is Osama bin Laden?

Who is Osama bin
Laden?

Since last Wednesday’s terrorist
attack on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, the name
Osama bin Laden has been spoken with increased frequency. In
the days that have followed the terrorist attacks, the Bush
Administration has indicated that it believes bin Laden is
the prime suspect behind the attacks and has become
increasingly strident in its rhetoric that it will bring him
to justice. His name is mentioned daily in the media around
the world and any retaliation the US launches in the wake of
the attacks will involve bin Laden. However, despite all
this widespread belief, the question remains as to whom
exactly is he. We know the name and have seen the face, yet
who is Osama bin Laden?

Osama bin laden was born in Saudi
Arabia. One of 54 children, he was born into a wealthy
construction family and this is believed to be the source of
his private wealth which he uses to finance his network.
After serving as a Mujahadeen fighter against the Soviet
occupation of Afghanistan, bin laden returned to his
homeland where he called for insurrection against the ruling
Saud family. Such action led him to be stripped of his Saudi
nationality by the government and he was expelled from the
country. This led him to Sudan.

Upon his relocation to the
Sudan in 1994, he established numerous businesses which not
only provided employment for veterans of the Afghan War, but
which are also believed to be serve as the logistics network
for his network. His expulsion to Sudan was not the first
time bin Laden was believed to be involved with terrorism as
the United States claims he was linked to the hotel bombings
in Yemen which where aimed at US servicemen en-route to
Somalia and included the bombing of the Egyptian embassy in
Pakistan in 1992.

His residency in Sudan was to last only
two years. The Khartoum regime asked bin Laden to leave the
country in 1994 in a bid to seek warmer relations with the
West and the United States. Upon this request, he relocated
to Afghanistan where he established his base of operations
and where he is believed to be located at present. In
Afghanistan, bin Laden lives under the protection of the
Taleban militia who control 90 percent of the country and
despite growing US and international pressure have thus far
refused to hand him over to US prosecutors and law
enforcement agencies.

Throughout the 1990’s, it appears
that bin Laden’s words held more power than his actions. In
this time he issued two Declarations of Holy War, or fatwa’s
as they are also known as, and in these manifests he
explains his opposition to the United States and its
military presence in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf and
his belief that he and other Muslims are engaged in a holy
war to drive the US out of the sacred lands of Islam. In
these statements, he makes clear his violent intent and he
displayed this when he publicly applauded the attack on the
US military base at al-Khobar in Saudi Arabia in 1996.

However, it was the simultaneous bombings of the US
embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 that dramatically
increased bin Laden’s worldwide profile. Following these
attacks and the US cruise missile strikes on his assets in
Afghanistan and Sudan that same year in an attempt to
prevent any further strikes his name was spoken by the
Clinton Administration, the US Congress and the media. From
this point the cult of personality that now surrounds bin
Laden developed and with the attack on the USS Cole in Aden
in 2000 and a series of threats and alerts, bin Laden became
recognized as the international terrorist leader of the new
millennium.

It is estimated that bin Laden has over 3000
activists within his network, although this too cannot be
confirmed. Details of his network, known as the al-Qaida
(Translated means The Base) came to light when on August
15th 1998, when Mohammed Sadiq Odeh, a member of his network
was arrested in Pakistan on a false passport. In his
confession Odeh gave an extensive account of bin Laden’s
network, including an acknowledgment of his role behind the
embassy bombings in Africa. Odeh put the number of
operatives in the network at between 4000 and 5000 personnel
active throughout Africa and the Middle East, and claimed
that bin Laden has a large arsenal of conventional weapons
in his arsenal.

Perhaps the most effective weapon bin
Laden has is that it is likely that his network is a loose
structure of cells, groups and people that operate
worldwide. The US believes that this is the case and this
makes it extremely difficult to combat, as each cell is
completely independent of the others. It is not clear the
exact level of control bin Laden has over each cell or the
people involved, and this is why establishing his level of
involvement becomes difficult. Along with the missile
strikes, the United States responded to bin Laden on August
20th 1998 when President Clinton issued Executive Order
12947 placing the network on it's list of groups that it
considers terrorist and indicting him for conspiring to kill
American citizens outside the US. The Executive Order bans
US firms from undertaking any financial transactions with
bin Laden’s network and allows the freezing of any assets
that the network may have within the US.

Whether bin Laden
had any involvement in last weeks terrorist attacks on the
US is still unclear and if this the case then the next
question is what exactly did this involvement entail. Was it
that he planned these strikes down to the last detail,
recruited the men involved, provided finance or simply gave
them his blessing? Whatever proves to be the case, the US
government has identified bin Laden as the man ultimately
responsible for these attacks and has vowed to retaliate.
The other interesting point here is the US media and public
have made this conclusion as well, despite not knowing his
exact involvement or whom he really is. Whatever his private
thoughts and objectives, bin Laden has become the face and
image to the vast and abstract concept of international
terrorism. The US claims that it is now in a war with
terrorism and this is true. However what does this mean? If
someone is asked to provide an explanation for this
statement or to clarify it would they be able to do so? With
the existence and profile of bin Laden that is not required.
The abstract nature to the concept of international
terrorism, even Islamic terrorism disappears. People do not
have to comprehend it or even have it explained as they see
it all embodied in Osama bin Laden and this is why his name
is perhaps one of the most well known in the world at this
present time.

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